Armenia’s Ambassador to Syria releases book devoted to the Armenian Genocide

On the occasion of the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the ash-Shark Publishing House of Damascus recently released the new book in Arabic by Ambassador of the Republic of Armenia to Syria, Doctor of Historical Sciences Arshak Poladyan. The book is entitled “Testimonies of the West about the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire”.

This is what the Department of Information and Public Relations of the RA Ministry of Foreign Affairs told “Armenpress”, adding the following: “Based on a variety of multilingual sources, Ambassador Poladyan has conducted an in-depth analysis of the Armenian Cause in three different stages, including the eras of Hammid, the Young Turks and Kemalist Turkey. He has properly presented to Arab readers the details of the great tragedy that happened to the Armenians, the political and economic goals of the Turks’ monstrous plan to physically annihilate the Western Armenians, the horrible historical facts and has sharply criticized the policy of denial of the Turkish regimes.

In addition, in the book, Arshak Poladyan has made an attempt to present to Arab readers the atrocious and inhuman crime committed against the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire not by presenting the data found in Armenian sources, but by presenting the memories of eyewitnesses, archives and historic reports from the West, attaching importance to the memories of US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire and lawyer Henry Morgenthau, extracts from the speech by English historian Viscont James Bryce at the House of the Lords in Great Britain on 6 October 1915, the historical summary by English historian Arnold Toynbee “On the Treatment towards the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915-16”, as well as the accounts of US reporter Herbert Adams Gibbons about one of the darkest pages in history and the accounts of Norwegian explorer Fritdjof Nansen included in the book “Armenia and the Near East”.

The annex in Ambassador Poladyan’s book includes the speeches that President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, President of Russia Vladimir Putin and President of France Francois Hollande gave at the grand ceremony dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide at Tsitsernakaberd on 24 April 2015, the message of Pope Francis I during the Holy Mass dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide at the Vatican on 12 April 2015, as well as the speech that participant of the Global Forum in Yerevan and Speaker of the People’s Council of Syria Mohammad Jihad al-Laham gave in Yerevan on 22 April 2015.

With the purpose of presenting the Armenian Cause in the Arab World and condemning the Armenian Genocide perpetrated in the Ottoman Empire, the author has also included the declaration that the State Commission on Coordination of the events dedicated to the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide adopted in Yerevan on 29 January 2015, the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted on 9 December 1946, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted on 10 December 1948 and the Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity adopted on 26 November 1968.

The preface of the book was written by prominent Syrian intellectual, public and political figure, Dr. Nabil Toomen, who was awarded with the Medal of Gratitude by the President of the Republic of Armenia in 2015. Toomen has praised the highly important scientific and cognitive significance of Ambassador’s Poladyan’s book and the extremely interesting accounts of Western eyewitnesses that are aimed at shedding light on the Armenian Genocide. The book has been released with a beautiful and tastefully designed cover. It serves as a great source of information about the Armenian Genocide for Arab readers.